The way that the Palm Pre works with iTunes is great, clever, intuitive, and just aggravating enough for me to want to try something else for syncing my media. The 'something else' I picked was a no-brainer and I'm not going back: doubleTwist.
doubleTwist, if you didn't know, is the new project from Jon Lech Johansen, who you may know better as 'DVD Jon,' who has found workarounds for nearly every meda DRM you can think of. That's serious geek cred, sure, but it's also a signal and Johansen cares about openness, transparency, and simplicity and those virtues are abudant in doubleTwist.
doubleTwist is an application for both Mac and PC that allows you to easily transfer media from your computer to virtually any device you plug into it. It understands what the Pre can and can't support and automatically re-formats your media into a compatible format. I may have mentioned RealPlayer SP yesterday, but trust me: doubleTwist is better. For me, it's even better than the built-in iTunes Sync.
Read on to find out why and to get some thoughts on the webOS and the Pre from DVD Jon himself.
doubleTwist is Easy
I'm not knocking iTunes for being too chock full of features, but sometimes it's comforting to have an app that's straightforward. doubleTwist automatically includes the directories most likely to have your music (and on a Mac reads your iLife apps, including iTunes).
Full support for Playlists -- both on doubleTwist and with transferring -- would be nice to see. I also wish that there were a real progress bar when transferring files instead of just a spinning indicator. Hopefully these features will come soon -- like webOS, doubleTwist is very early in its lifecycle.
Update: On Windows, doubleTwist supports playlists and automatic playlist sync as well as having a proper progress bar. The Mac version should see an update with those features later this year.
The other 'easy' part of doubleTwist is that it does a better job understanding what the Pre can and cannot play than iTunes does -- iTunes thinks the Pre is an iPod so I've had it transfer video files over to the Pre that just wouldn't play. I asked Johansen to expand a bit on how doubleTwist handles conversion:
doubleTwist knows which audio and video formats the Palm Pre supports as well as the restrictions on each format (max bitrate, max video resolution, etc). If you try to sync an audio or video file the Pre doesn't support, doubleTwist will automatically convert to a supported format before transferring the file to your Pre. Note that this is not specific to the Pre though - doubleTwist works the same way with all the devices we support (Sony PSP, BlackBerry, Android, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, etc). doubleTwist also supports most camcorders and digital cameras so if you've recorded a video of your kids you can transfer it to your Pre and always have it with you.
doubleTwist will allow you to directly upload your photos to Flickr and FaceBook and your videos to YouTube. Plus, doubleTwist will download and convert YouTube videos (you just need to know the URL) so you can save them on your Pre. You can also use the send feature to upload media to doubleTwist's servers for sharing.
There are also apparently a bunch of social features that I'm not using, but they're there.
doubleTwist is Transparent
Here's one of the main reasons I prefer doubleTwist: it's transparent. When you sync with iTunes, iTunes treats your Pre like and iPod, and I'm not fond the results. When iTunes transferred music to an iPod, it places the music in a hidden directory, actually it places the music in a series of directories within that hidden directory and renames the files with random letters instead of keeping the song-based file names.
So if I use iTunes to transfer music to my Pre and later I want to put it in USB mode and move that music to another one of my computers I'm stuck playing around with the same hacks that iPod users have come to know and loathe.
doubleTwist takes any music you transfer to the Pre -- including all your Music from iTunes -- and puts it in the Music directory on your Pre. Movies go in the Movies directory. Pictures go in the Pictures directory.
doubleTwist Works Both Ways
This is what sold me on doubleTwist. Like Kevin C Tofel of jkOnTheRun, I find the experience of managing the tracks I've puchased on the Pre in the App frustrating. With doubleTwist you can drag and drop any media from your Pre to your PC or Mac. Presumably that's the 'double' in 'doubleTwist.'
doubleTwist isn't perfect. It's not as full-featured of a media player as iTunes by a long shot -- but then it's not really meant to be (yet?). As a tool for moving media to and from the Pre, it's pretty darn good - I've replaced iTunes with it.
Jon Lech Johansen on the Pre, webOS
I also asked Johansen a few questions about the Pre and the webOS as a platform.
PreCentral: What do you think of the webOS as a platform, specifically wondering if you think Palm is striking the right balance of openness vs.
proprietary.
Johansen: I've had my Pre since launch day and I think webOS looks really promising. That they've made the device easy to hack and flash with custom firmware is pretty cool. However, I think Palm's success will depend on how quickly they can engage developers (doubleTwist applied to the SDK program on day 1 and we still haven't been accepted). There's some really compelling Android devices coming out in the next couple of months and I think that's who Palm is really competing against rather than the iPhone.
[Palm: Quit pulling an Apple on us here - get doubleTwist into the SDK Beta. - Dieter]
PreCentral: Any interest in developing for webOS directly? For any other non-desktop or mobile platform?
Johansen: At doubleTwist we're looking at Android, iPhone, and webOS. Some of the things we're planning to do probably won't be allowed into Apple's store, so you'll probably see those on Android or webOS first.
PreCentral: Any thoughts on the iTunes / Palm Pre iPod trickery you care / dare to share?
Johansen: A clever hack, but not something that will last. There's no way Apple is going to let a competitor benefit directly from the iTunes ecosystem. If Apple doesn't block this, they're essentially inviting all of their other competitors to take the same route as Palm. Kudos to Palm though for recognizing that digital media is an important part of a mobile device. Some of Apple's other competitors completely ignore that aspect (e.g. the G1 came with no solution for getting your music playlists and videos onto it).
Comments
I look forward to the day Johansen applies those open principles to his own company and releases enough source code to make a Linux port of doubleTwist possible.
I'm not holding my breath, though.
I posted a thread on Doubletwist a few days ago. Almost no one even cared and no comments were made on it. I hope people will now see the awesomeness of DoubleTwist now...
Aghh!! The "Youre" in the title! It hurts my eyes! Please remove the "e"!!!
This is the first time I've heard of this program. Seems pretty cool. I was thinking about trying to sync with the latest Songbird release (1.2) because they have export/import capabilities with iTunes. Maybe a side by side comparison is due....
Downloaded this app a while back but didnt take it seriously until today. Great!!!! Been downloading my favorite Youtube videos. Also have 3 full length DVDs on the PRE now. I think I just starting getting a return on my investment and the Ap store is not even in full swing. LOOK OUT DIE-PHONE!!!
no playlists is a deal breaker for me. The Pre has limited browsing options (for example, if I hit "genre", it doesn't then give me a list of artists / albums-- just all the songs in that genre), so playlists for me are a must.
Also does doubleTwist know that the Pre can handle Apple Lossless files? It's not listed among the supported codecs, but the Pre sure as hell plays them flawlessly. The last thing I'd want is doubletwist using some lossy compression on my lossless files, I'd rather keep them as-is. Sounds pretty good for people who are new, though, and don't know as much about various codecs and what their player supports.
Lastly, I wonder what Jon's got in mind for the Pre / Android. Perhaps a stand-alone music app that could be used instead of the Pre's built in music player? That could be awesome (add in a few things like gapless and EQ). Obviously something that will probably not happen on the iPhone / iPod Touch.
Anyways, it's good to see some people with solid software looking to get involved with WebOS and Android.
I ran a sync on my Pre, but no playlists were transferred to the device. Is there some magic voodoo I'm missing?
Please can someone create an APP for the PRE when the Dev Kit releases that lets me queue music up on my PC and download to my Phone over WiFi (Not through Amazon) so I don't have to open up that stupid USB door on my phone that I feel like I'm going to break every time.
I second that request!
In the meantime, my wife noticed that if you slide open the keyboard on the phone first, it is a heck of a lot easier to open the micro USB door.
Seems really interesting. I will have to give this a try. ITunes is driving me crazy.
Why did they put the darn USB door there in the first place? Blackberry and Apple don't have anything covering theirs.
You can always go sans cover, i.e. break it off. ;)
Glad I checked in today. Was just telling someone that while iTunes work, we need something comparable that works more solidly with the Pre and doesn't risk some inevitable lock down from Apple. I'll have to download this tonight and give it a shot.
I have been using DoubleTwist for a little while now too! Unfortunately not on my Pre, because... well... I don't have a Pre yet. I have been using it on my Creative Zen, and it is a nice alternative to WMP for me.
Am I the only one that can't get it to install because it want's to connect to a "host"?
-edit: Guess I'm not the only one. Here's the link to the "full" install:
http://download.doubletwist.com/doubleTwistSetupFull.exe
-edit2: Even after the full install it tenaciously wanted to connect to the host and is unusable until it does so.
I'll pass.
I downloaded and installed DoubleTwist on my PC and when I plug in my Pre nothing in DT shows that I have a device connected at all. Whether I select Media Sync or USB drive. Wtf?
It doesn't even recognize my iPod... great program. I'll stick with iTunes.
I love this thing. I'm using it on a Macbook and it's working great. I don't like the lack of progress bar, but hopefully it will be added. I just used it to import a 96 minute movie. It was in an iPod friendly format, so it took awhile for the reformatting, but after 10 minutes I can watch "Clue" on my Pre all day long. When I had transferred the file via iTunes, the file was visible, but would not play. Thanks for the tip.
Can any one show the steps to download this or real player or any app the can play video outside of youtube everytime I try my pre goes crazy and starts to open cards like crazy!!!!! Am not real good with this tech stuff so can some one please show me the way!!!????
For music this doesn't seem to be a big deal; I don't really like how doubletwist displays the media library, I'd rather just drag directories over to the Pre in USB mode (and I've never been a big believer in "syncing" music anyway - drag and drop!). For video, however, this is a handy tool for getting my videos formated for WinMob over to the Pre, and the youtube feature is slick.
This program sounds amazing! I gave it a try and everything works great...except for the fact that it doesn't recognize the music files on my pre which were previously uploaded through iTunes. However, it does recognize my photos. I dragged a file from my computer to the pre and that worked also. Anybody having similar issues?
I also installed Doubletwist perfectly fine, however my Pre doesn't show up docked on the left-hand side like the screen shot shown in the article above. why won't it recognize the Pre?
*COUGH*
RIP OFF
*COUGH*
Seriously could they not come up with their own ideas? This is like a cheap tacky rollex.
I'm all up for people making abtter iTunes client, in fact I'd love someone to write one that works with the iPhone properly but I want something different, that's why i'd change!!
What I would like to know is:
When we can get a software update that will include a camcorder
When we can start seeing new apps in the catalog
When we can start seeing the addition of myspace, yahoo, and other 3rd parties in to synergy
These three things would be awesome. I am in love with my Pre, but these three things would make it absolutely perfect for me.
doubletwist is a terrible app, do not have to do more than run the install to see that it will suck. Any install that does not let you pick the location breaks all the beginner programmer rules. If they can not get this right then it will be full of bugs and all kinds of other issues.
I am a developer so I can flame it, I am a user and I double flame it.
can you make ring tones with double twist....?
Can you make ring tones on your palm pre with double twist??
Some nice features here and is nice to know there's an option to iTunes. But truthfully, it's not working as well as it should for me, so I'll stick with the itunes until they won't allow it anymore. DT couldn't recognize a third of the songs in my playlists for some reason and iTunes works fine... So could just be my own stupidity, but either way... Not there yet for me.
Does DT work 100% for anyone? I tried it and had nothing but errors and problems where iTunes is always flawless and problem free.
I dont think I ever used DT without it closing for no reason when I was trying to do something.
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